King of Tokyo

Overview

You and your monster buddies decided to hold a reunion, but somewhere along the way, you guys simply forgot to reserve hotel rooms. The comfiest digs in this part of the world is in Tokyo and that’s where everyone wants to hunker down for the night. Unfortunately, no one really wants to share. And so, you come up with a way to decide who will stay in Tokyo that night with an all-out brawl, in so doing, determining the one, the true, the King of Tokyo!

King of Tokyo is a game for 2-6 players where the goal is to become the King of Tokyo. How you do so is up to you, but you have the option of engaging in fights with other players, slinking around the edges to collect reputation (victory points) or even morphing your monster to be an even creepier beast with two heads, fire breathing, but still somehow managing to be friends with children (don’t ask). The life of a monster is a truly complicated one, but with your strength, good looks, and some new abilities in tow, you just might have what it takes to emerge victorious to become the King of Tokyo!

But there’s no telling what can happen. Will your friend, the Not-Cthulhu Kraken from the murky depths, decide to bait you into Tokyo so that all of the other monsters can whale on you with impunity? Will the Cyberbunny just go all in and claim Tokyo for himself, confident in its hide to be able to withstand everyone else’s attack while ripping out his fiery breath? Or will some mishap allow the pacifistic Not-Godzilla Gigalizard to claim enough reputation so as to win Tokyo without having to lift a tail?

Core Mechanics: Dice rolling, pressing your luck.

Victory Condition: There are two ways to win at King of Tokyo: be the last monster standing or accumulate 20 victory points without dying. Being the last monster standing mostly involves surviving everyone else’s attacks, whether it’s being the center of attention in Tokyo and attacking everyone or just poking the monster in Tokyo and teaming up with everyone else to bring him down. The other method, that of winning by victory points, requires that you roll point resolution results or buying cards to give you points. Achievable if you’re not being targeted for a large part of the game.

Ease of learning: This game is easy easy so easy to teach. The only thing you really have to teach is explaining what all of the dice results mean. The toughest part might be either in explaining that rolling a 4-of-a-kind nets you an additional point or explaining what the special abilities/mutations do. But you don’t even need to do that; it’s a pretty quick and easy game to set up and get into right away!